Walmart Won't Offer Free Shipping This Holiday Season

The holiday season has officially kicked off — and so have the holiday retail wars. The big players are already gearing up, announcing free shipping, rolling out the commercials, and even offering a new take on curbside pickup, hoping the incentive of online-to-door-delivery will be enough to win your holiday shopping loyalty. But one key retailer is missing from the free shipping mix: Walmart.

Who Needs Free Shipping?

Instead of free shipping to your home, Walmart plans to push the company's free shipping to store option for purchases less than $50. It makes sense for Walmart. After all, when customers pick up online orders, they're likely to browse the store and make additional purchases, racking up the total holiday shopping done through one retailer. But it might not make sense for the company's customers.

Walmart's Site to Store program has also faced the same problems experienced by many retailers. The process of parking, walking all the way to the back of the store, and waiting in line can be frustrating for consumers, especially during the busy holiday season. In fact, another study found that in-store pickup is often as slow or slower than just finding the item on shelves and checking out. So many may opt to avoid the process altogether.

Target, Best Buy, and More Are Offering Free Shipping for the Holidays

A few of Walmart's competitors are promising free holiday shipping this year in an early play to woo customers. Target has already lowered its shipping thresholds. From November 1 through Christmas Day, customers can have any order shipped free. Customers will also get free returns.

Best Buy started offering free shipping on any purchase (with a few exceptions) October 25 and will continue to offer the promotion longer than Target. Customers have until January 2 to get free shipping with no minimums.

Sports Authority is offering free shipping through the holiday season. However, certain items don't qualify for the promotion, including large and heavy items like home gym equipment, select camping gear, trampolines, and some furniture items.

Free Shipping, With Limits

Other retailers are falling more in line with Walmart, offering free shipping for select customers or with a minimum purchase.

Amazon's famous free shipping for Prime members, for example, probably won't expand to include all customers again this year. However, the online giant does offer free shipping with a $35 purchase on select items for non-Prime members.

Kohl's has a $75 shipping minimum, but the retailer has been known to lower the threshold — or offer free shipping altogether — on certain days throughout the holiday season.

Old Navy has a year-round minimum purchase of $50 for free shipping, though the retailer has lowered the threshold to $35 during sale periods, and has offered free shipping with no minimum at select times throughout the holiday season.

Free Returns: A Convenient Perk for the Holidays

PayPal, now operating independently of eBay, is also in on the free returns game this season in an attempt to get more people to check out through the third-party site. Customers who purchase through PayPal can activate the coverage through the website and receive up to $30 worth of return shipping costs, even if the retailer isn't offering. Customers will have until January 31 to claim the free return shipping, but can only claim up to four purchases total.

Site-to-Store Upgrades

Many retailers are also trying to boost the appeal of site-to-store shipping through the holidays.

Walmart is making an effort to make things easier for shoppers this year. According to Bloomberg Business, the company has been relocating pickup areas to the front of the store, so customers can be in and out faster (and hopefully leave happier).

Target is making the trip even shorter. Through a partnership with Curbside, a Silicon Valley startup, customers who opt for site-to-store shipping can pull to the front of the store to have their purchases delivered to their car. However, the retailer is only offering the program at 121 Target locations so far, so your mileage (and your pickup trek) may vary, according to the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.

Of course, we're still early in the season, and other retailers may announce free shipping deals later (especially the infamous last-minute deals for late shoppers). What retailers are you most hoping will offer free shipping? Let us know in the comments below.

Angela Colley has covered everything from money saving technology to how the Mayans might affect your savings. She’s appeared on publications like MainStreet and MSN Money. You can follow her on Twitter @angelancolley.

DealNews may be compensated by companies mentioned in this article.
Please note that, although prices sometimes fluctuate or expire
unexpectedly, all products and deals mentioned in this feature were
available at the lowest total price we could find at the time of
publication (unless otherwise specified).

You might also like

5 comments

Teresa22

Wal-Mart has pretty much lost my business for the season. Horribly slow online site and cancellations galore of items after you place the order. Who needs to find out that you may not get your order a few days before Christmas?

GA_owl

I second the horrendousness of Walmart In Store Pickup (and Lowes, which still beats Walmart), at least in Conyers, GA. So if you think you want to try it - just don't. Ever. Ever. Trust me. 100% never ever ever worth it. Pay the shipping fee or find it for a bit more on Amazon or Target or Big Lots. It is worth the price of avoiding the nightmare that is in store pickup.

Rawmeat

Bad idea on Walmart's part. I tried Walmart store pickup once, and I will never do it again. Lowe's stinks too. I will shop online at Walmart if I can meet the $49 threshold for everyday free shipping, but if I can't hit the $49 mark, they lose my business. I will not set foot in that mess of a store. If a different store (like Target) offers free shipping to my door on a smaller order, I might pay a buck or two more for some items, but overall, I'll come out ahead of paying Walmart shipping and not have to go near a brick-and-mortar store. I do have Amazon Prime and shop there a lot, but Prime had added value other than just shipping. Plus I can recoup part of the Amazon Prime fee if I choose slower shipping in exchange for credits to get free digital music or digital books. Forget paying Walmart $50 for their shipping program.

TampaBayGuy

Walmart ignorance will cause them to suffer the same fate as K-mart. Why even bother to shop at Walmart when they can't compete with the best of the best Amazon! Walmart can't come close to Amazon customer service, product selection & prices. Keep up the good work Amazon.

chipwich74

This could be ugly for Walmart. Have you ever shopped their site to store? It's terrible! 9/10 times you wait for 10+ minutes at the register for someone to come help you. Then they spend 30 minutes shuffling around back trying to find parts of your order. Never again.

Looks like Walmart is trying not to cannibalize from their new $50 annual free shipping pilot..makes sense, but again think this is a risky move for them with so many other retailers willing to offer the free shipping perk.